


Forever and a Day

by Carmenlire



Series: Tumblr Prompts [15]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Sad Magnus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 09:19:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15748788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmenlire/pseuds/Carmenlire
Summary: Without thinking, Magnus takes another sip-- and another, and then a deep swallow until the martini glass is as empty as his heart. He barely feels the sting of alcohol as it goes down, doesn’t feel the warmth when he’s been ice cold for almost a year. It’s nothing but an escape, a futile effort to forget.Or, Magnus loses himself in memories.





	Forever and a Day

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue Prompt by @wirtanzenimregen: "I still remember the way you taste."

Magnus overlooks the skyline. The city doesn’t matter-- it’s not New York and that’s what counts. He sees cars dozens of stories below, hazy and unfocused.

Everything’s a blur lately but Magnus doesn’t mind.

He tips his drink back, surprised as only a few drops of liquor reach his tongue. He brings his arm down, studies the bottom of the glass. With a negligent wave of his hand, he magics a refill. He’s been drinking whatever’s handy the past month-- tequila when the thought of facing his empty bed threatens to break him, whiskey when he’s lost in thought, a martini when he wants nothing more but to drown in memories.

Glass refilled, he brings it back up to his mouth only to pause right before the edge touches his lips. With a ghost of a smile, he snaps his fingers. Though it lacks the fluidity of movement, the arrogance that comes when trying to impress someone _interesting_ , it brings him back to a time tinted in gold, no matter that the world had been on the verge of ending on a daily basis back then.

The surface of the alcohol ripples as flames of blue erupt. It’s a parlor trick but one that had filled Magnus with cockiness, surety once upon a time.

If only he’d known.

Well, that’s misleading. Even if he’d known the devastation waiting for him, he would have still made that drink. He would’ve poked and prodded at a stilted shadowhunter who smiled guilelessly when complimented and bit when backed into a corner.

Without thinking, Magnus takes another sip-- and another, and then a deep swallow until the martini glass is as empty as his heart.

He barely feels the sting of alcohol as it goes down, doesn’t feel the warmth when he’s been ice cold for almost a year. It’s nothing but an escape, a futile effort to forget.

It’s painful irony, then, when he’s plagued by remembering.

The martini glass morphs into a squat tumbler filled with a few fingers of whiskey. It’s French, almost two hundred years old, and one of the best bottles in his collection.

It has nothing on Alexander. Magnus half leans on the low railing of his balcony, watches with idle attention as a couple far below dance down the block, looking like they haven’t a care in the world on their date night.

Most of him is preoccupied with images of Alec, stern and commanding in the middle of the Institute; vulnerable and open within the walls of their loft; flushed and breathless on royal sheets.

Alec was a good man and a fascinating character study. Everyday, Magnus learned something new about his shadowhunter, the mortal he’d given his heart to almost unconsciously, effortlessly. Alec was the most beautiful man he’d ever met but never more so than when he let his walls down with Magnus.

Magnus was the only one allowed to see Alec at his lowest, at his most bare and laid out. Magnus took that as the privilege it was and never lost his rapt interest over the most simple of tasks, not when they were about Alec. Whether it was a date night in a foreign city, a mission debrief, or undressing Alec by the light of a dozen candles, Magnus never took it for granted.

He’s particularly grateful for that now.

Refilling his glass, Magnus’s thoughts wander to some of his most intimate moments with Alec. Some filled with laughter and eager clumsiness, others with fire and a devastating deliberation. Magnus surrenders to the memories, hazy at the edges but crystal clear in sentiment.

He’s lost in the feeling of slightly chapped lips, surrounded by the smell of Alec-- clean sweat, a hint of cologne, something special only to him-- and the phantom sensation of messy hair against his cheek.

Closing his eyes, Magnus whispers, “I still remember the way you taste.”

Alec was unapologetic. Brash and rude with a melting core. He kissed like he did everything else-- determination and confidence and a stunning sense of style swirling together to bring Magnus to his knees. Alec, for all his inexperience, had been a devout student. He'd held a bottomless patience when it came to Magnus. He'd linger for hours, seeping them both in pleasure and syrupy satisfaction until Magnus wondered how he'd been blessed with such a love.

Magnus will always remember Alec. He’s been around long enough to realize that there will come a day when he forgets his favorite food or the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he told a truly awful joke.

But Magnus will never forget the way Alec kissed. From that very first moment that’s engraved in Magnus’s mind for the rest of eternity to the hundreds of absent minded kisses in between the two that changed his life irrevocably, Magnus has imprinted a thousand memories of Alec in his head and he knows they're his to keep forever.

Magnus sighs. The grief is losing its razor edge. It had permeated Magnus for months, day and night, and sometimes he’s afraid of what it means when he goes an hour without thinking of Alexander.

He knows that it’s normal. He can’t wallow in grief and rage and bitterness for the end of his days. It’s terrifying, though, to come to terms with the fact that he will go on without Alec no matter how much he may not want to.

Knocking back the rest of his drink, Magnus goes inside. He walks slowly through the living room, refusing to look at the couch the two of them had bought together the month before Alec’s unexpected death.

He doesn’t turn on the light as he enters his bedroom. He strips with little fanfare, settling his glass on the nightstand with a thud that’s a little too loud in the quiet darkness.

He crawls into bed, tension seeping out of him as sleep descends.

His dreams are filled with hazel eyes and stark runes. He turns over, smiling, as he leans in and kisses a waiting mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on tumblr @carmenlire! I'm always accepting prompts :)


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